What's a Clericzilla?

[PrGo]

I've heard of it and it caught my eye, but I don't know what is it except being a Cleric :P

So can someone tell me what Clericzilla means and how to make one?

Thanks in advance

[Eldariel]

Clericzilla is a Cleric that is a better Big Stupid Fighter than a Fighter. The basics are: "Buff yourself to high heaven and layeth the smackdown." It comes down primarily to spells like Righteous Might, Divine Power, Divine Favor and so on, along with obvious stuff like Greater Magic Weapon. Easier with Divine Metamagic: Persistent Spell to make all of the buff spells last all day. Otherwise it requires a bit more work. Still, the basic gist of it is outdoing the melee character at his thing while still doing your thing.

[Darth Stabber]

if you have the feat Divine metamagic: persist spell, You can be clericzilla anytime you wanna be.

[mikej]

Eldariel pretty much sumed the whole thing up, basically just a Clerc that completely overshadows other melee types while still being the number one in its own expertise. Just beware of flying dice that come your way by the DM

Simple & Easy

Human Cleric with Planning Domain + X Domain [Undead or Undeath I believe grants Extra Turning]
Domain Feat: Extend Spell
Human Feat: Persistent Spell
Level1: Divine Metamagic [Persistent Spell]
Leve3: Extra Turning etc etc

[monty]

Also, lots and lots of nightsticks. Mine are made of mozzarella.

[PrGo]

Um... What's this "Divine Metamagic" thingy? I never heard of it...

Please, shine some light on this mystery.

[monty]

Um... What's this "Divine Metamagic" thingy? I never heard of it...

Please, shine some light on this mystery.

It's a feat from Complete Divine. Basically, you put metamagic on your spells using turning attempts instead of increased levels.

[MammonAzrael]

Which means you can apply metamagic to much higher level spells. It typically goes like this

Persistent Spell increases the duration of a personal or fixed range spell to 24 hours, but raises the spell level by 6. The cleric then spends 7 turn undead attempts instead and can apply it to personal buff spells (even spells Persistent normally couldn't be applied to), thanks to DMM.

You can check out both feats at Crystal Keep.

[monty]

(even spells Persistent normally couldn't be applied to)

This only means that you can get spells of equivalent levels that would normally be higher than 9th. You could technically do that with the Improved Spell Capacity feat.

You still need to meet the requirements of Persistent Spell (personal or fixed range, etc.) to do it.

[Teron]

And because someone always tries this argument: no, it's not more effective for a cleric to buff a fighter rather than himself, because all the best buffs are self-only.

[aje8]

Persistent Spell increases the duration of a personal or fixed range spell to 24 hours, but raises the spell level by 6.

I thought persistent was +4. Source please?

Yeah, what the others said is basically correct.

Note however that Clericzilla is also usually extremley opimitzed and casts only the best spells..... while still outshining the fighter.

Also, lots and lots of nightsticks.

By RAW nightsticks stack with themselves. Thus for every couple of Nightsticks a cleric buys, he can have another spell on himself 24/7.

Common Choices are lesser vigor(and mass lesser vigor on the party), righteous might and divine power/favor.

It's pretty insane. Clericzills generally also take many of their feats as Extra Turning and have Charima as high as or higher than Wisdom.

[MammonAzrael]

I thought persistent was +4. Source please?

Ummm...Complete Arcane? Or for an online reference, Crystal Keep.

[monty]

I thought persistent was +4. Source please?

My copy of Complete Arcane definitely says six, and so does Crystal Keep.

[Eldariel]

SRD agrees.

[monty]

SRD agrees.

Oh yeah, I forgot that's in there. Why the hell is it in the Divine section, anyway?

[Eldariel]

Oh yeah, I forgot that's in there. Why the hell is it in the Divine section, anyway?

Unfortunately, the only SRD-eligible source the feat saw print in was Deities & Demigods. For whatever reason, WoTC decided that deities shouldn't be required to read splatbooks and thus gathered a bunch of handy splat feats into Deities & Gods and stated that "Deities can pick these feats in addition to the feats printed in PHB. Yes, these were printed already and were designed for player characters, but we decided to print 'em again just so you know that deities can pick 'em too! And we reprinted them exactly to keep them authentic." That's pretty much the crutch of it; Deities & Gods had a ton of 3.0 splatbook feats and since deity rules made it to SRD, so did all those feats too along with the deity material. And then they got their 3.5 update, giving us the 3.5 Knock-Down among others. Really pointless for 'em to reprint all those feats in Deities & Gods, but good that they did.

[AslanCross]

The high-level cleric would cast Miracle to copy the Wu Jen spell giant size, which allows him to become quite literally a ClericZilla. A gargantuan Jozan shooting sunbeams out of his mouth is not something I'd like to face.

[Joey/Flake]

I play alot of ClericZilla!'s...

I've had parties of them before..can be rather broken if they all do it correctly and in a way that support each other.

But to sum it up..

ClericZilla!'s = Win.

[Salvonus]

Are they actually fun to play, though? Not that I'm challenging it, but do explain the particular appeal of it. I know I made a DMM-using Cleric once, but ended up abandoning them because it just felt... bland. Do explain the merits of playing that sort of build - from both role and roll playing perspectives.

[kyoten]

What does a Nightstick do?

[Renegade Paladin]

Eldariel pretty much sumed the whole thing up, basically just a Clerc that completely overshadows other melee types while still being the number one in its own expertise. Just beware of flying dice that come your way by the DM

Or an opposing caster who decides to layeth the smack with dispel magic.

[elonin]

I'd like to point out that a few extreme cases of optimized-till-broken charactors have wrecked the premise for those of us who are not intrested in walking around as 3.5 versions of 2nd edition ranger (basically a good at everything tank).

Even without DMM cheese clerics are a good class (I tend to prefer arcane) due to their versitility. A DM could run an adventure of nothing but clerics if the clerics took the right domains.

[Salvonus]

Nightsticks grant you four extra turning attempts (for a cost of around 9k gp), just like the Extra Turning feat. They could be argued to stack, which is where a lot of abuse comes from. At higher levels, 9k is not such a big deal, so a Divine Metamagic-abusing character stacks them up to get tons of extra turning attempts and, as a result, extra free uses of Persistent Metamagic.

They come from Libris Mortis, by the way.

[Toliudar]

Are they actually fun to play, though? Not that I'm challenging it, but do explain the particular appeal of it. I know I made a DMM-using Cleric once, but ended up abandoning them because it just felt... bland. Do explain the merits of playing that sort of build - from both role and roll playing perspectives.

I've played a couple variants on the DMM cleric, and they're fun to play because you don't have to be strong in the same way every day. If what you really need is all-day flight, you can do that. If you're going up the lich, or the sorcerer who metamagics his Enervations, you can persist a couple death wards.

I've rarely focused exclusively on the Divine Power etc melee machine, because while the best buffs are personal, there are still lots of good cleric buffs that are useful for others - especially the group ones. It's a collaborative game, after all.

Flavour is where you find it. None of the DMM clerics I've played have ever used it in quite the same way, and they all had quite different personalities.

[aje8]

Ummm...Complete Arcane? Or for an online referenc

Well...... shut my mouth and call me fighter........ I could have sworn it was +4. Moving on.

I'd like to point out that a few extreme cases of optimized-till-broken charactors have wrecked the premise for those of us who are not intrested in walking around as 3.5 versions of 2nd edition ranger (basically a good at everything tank).

Even without DMM cheese clerics are a good class (I tend to prefer arcane) due to their versitility. A DM could run an adventure of nothing but clerics if the clerics took the right domains.

In my opinion, they is only one REAL DnD role. Full Caster. As long as you have a full caster(and he's well built), the other players can play anything. You can literally take on appropiate CR encounters with a Wizard, Cleric or Druid as long you buy an Animal Tank. (Riding Dog then Heavy Warhorse) At the higher levels, you don't need the tank. Seriously.

Or an opposing caster who decides to layeth the smack with dispel magic.

Leaving you with MERELY THE BEST DIVINE SPELLCASTER IN THE GAME. That doesn't really screw you over at all.

On the subject of one, I will tell you that on the few occasions I have played DMM Clerics, I have throughly enjoyed myself. My party's tend to be throughly optimized and face encounters signifcantly above our ECL on a regular basis though.

[Douglas]

Well...... shut my mouth and call me fighter........ I could have sworn it was +4. Moving on.

It was, back in the 3.0 Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting where it was introduced.

[Eldariel]

Or an opposing caster who decides to layeth the smack with dispel magic.

He better be damn good at dispelling to overcome Cleric's Rings of (Greater) Counterspells, Rings of Spellbattle, Ring of Enduring Arcana and artificially +4 caster level from Beads of Karma. That means we'll be talking about CL ~10+character level and a few freely countered Dispels daily.

:o

[Epic_Wizard]

He better be damn good at dispelling to overcome Cleric's Rings of (Greater) Counterspells, Rings of Spellbattle, Ring of Enduring Arcana and artificially +4 caster level from Beads of Karma. That means we'll be talking about CL ~10+character level and a few freely countered Dispels daily.

:o

Only 2 Rings at a time except with specific magic items.

Dispelling Wall would do it. Acts as a targeted Greater Dispel Magic on anyone that walks through it so no counter spell (I believe so anyways, I don't know the counterspelling rules). Plus with all of your buffs gone you may be a good divine caster but you're also still squishy. After you're dispelled a Rusting Grasp turned into a Ray kills your armor (or one of a number of other ways of getting rid of it). Then have a heavy wade in and shred him or summon something nasty next door.

[Eldariel]

Only 2 Rings at a time except with specific magic items.

Hand of Glory pretty much shows finger to that limitation. Literally. For 8000 you'll get a third one. And you still have to deal with the Cleric's Caster Level + 10 difficulty class for being dispelled, so unless you're 10 levels higher than him or have equally buffed dispel checks, you aren't going to dispel pretty much anything (and that's without the Cleric actually trying).

[Joey/Flake]

Is playing a ClericZilla any fun?

Yes. The Build shouldn't decided how to play your character, as long a you personalise the actual 'flesh' of the character all should be fine.

Builds don't make a Character. Players do.

Monster don't kill Characters, DM's do.